Good things happen. Bad things happen. They occur randomly and usually outside our control, yet how we deal with them affects everything in our lives. The usual reaction to something bad is 'why me?' and 'this is unfair'.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by bad events and it is a hard lesson in life that life isn't fair. This is the first thing life teaches us. Life is not positively cruel, events just happen and it can be extremely difficult to come to terms with some things, such as the death of someone dear to us. But we are worth more than giving up if only because there are others who need us. While the pain never goes away, the memory of that person is part of us and they gave us something which we can hold onto and use. Knowing them extended us and broadened our understanding of the world.

There are positive things too. Many of us have so little self worth that if we are successful at something we play it down fearing that we might be considered to be showing off or not valuing it because we did it. While we might not take much from our achievements others will. When we are able to recognize that we have done something which others think is worthwhile perhaps it is worth reevaluating how we see ourselves. The second strand is to rethink our self worth and recognize that we have a right to be here and that we have skills which are useful. Luckily everyone has different skills which makes for variety and allows us to fill different niches.

It sounds Pollyannaish to always look on the bright side and try to extract something positive and useful from the events which occur; but our mental health, our relationships with family and friends can be augmented or damaged by how we cope with life's events. When we are hurting, its too easy to slide into a black hole. Sometimes we have to do that to know how to go forward but it's better not to go too far down or its difficult to find the way back.

Anger is a frequent response to negative issues. Anger can be treated as a positive energy source to drive us to improve things and persist until we get it right or it can destroy us. If we have a high level of anger its worth finding out why if we don't know. We use far less energy being calm and that energy can be put to useful work for our benefit.

We can learn from life to appreciate the good things that happen and treasure them as precious, something that when things are not going well we can look at and remember it's not always bad. From the difficulties we encounter which make us angry or grieve there are lessons to learn about how we deal with situations, how we can make them something with good memories not destructive ones.